


See Me

by nuandia



Series: Let me stay here with you [1]
Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Character Turned Into a Ghost, If my writing spirits stays the start of a series, M/M, fingers crossed, not a happy ending i guess, not beta read we die like sunset curve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-14 00:01:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29162331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nuandia/pseuds/nuandia
Summary: Alex stops. He rubs his thumb over each name, inhaling and exhaling. They’re here. Their names are here. They’re not dead. The heavy knot in his stomach loosens a little and he feels like he can finally breathe again. They’re fine. They have to be.
Relationships: Alex Mercer & Luke Patterson & Reggie Peters (Julie and The Phantoms), Alex Mercer/Luke Patterson (Julie and The Phantoms), mentioned
Series: Let me stay here with you [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2140713
Comments: 22
Kudos: 53





	See Me

Alex walks down the halls hurriedly. The whole hospital smells chemically clean. It itches in his nose. He rubs his hand over it, but keeps reading on the tags at the doors. It’s the second floor he’s checked out, still nothing. Alex walks through the door, runs up the stairway and keeps reading. 

Brennan / Holton

Falkner / Yang

Pattins / Roberts 

Patterson / Peters

Alex stops. He rubs his thumb over each name, inhaling and exhaling. They’re here. Their names are here. They’re not dead. The heavy knot in his stomach loosens a little and he feels like he can finally breathe again. They’re fine. They have to be. 

Alex steps inside the room. The lights are off, but he can see the faces from the door. Reggie and Luke, both lying in a bed, pale and fragile. 

Alive. 

Alex steps closer. He’s looking down at Luke’s sleeping face. The heart monitor is beeping rhythmically to the strong beat of his heart. He’s pale and there are dark circles under his eyes, but he’s alive. 

Alex thinks he’s never heard a more beautiful sound. Luke has kicked the blanket down towards his feet. He must be cold. He needs to- 

He needs to care for his friend, be there just as he’s always done. He reaches towards the blanket and pulls them up, tucking him in. Luke sighs in his sleep. 

Someone groans, a hurt and miserable sound. Alex steps away from Luke to the other bed. Reggie’s blinking his eyes open, his lips pale and his eyes unfocused. He moves, but his limbs are uncoordinated and he slumps back down. 

“Hey, hey, it’s okay, just- just rest, Reg”, he says, as calm as he can, because his friends almost died. They almost- 

He inhales and exhales once, twice and then he feels calmer. Reggie’s blinking sluggishly. 

“’lex?”

“Yeah, I’m here. Luke’s here. Everything’s okay.” He smiles at Reggie, who nods and lies back down, relaxing against the sheets. He keeps blinking sluggishly at him, a dopey smile on his lips until he stops blinking altogether and falls asleep again. 

Alex steps closer, running his hand through his hair. 

He remembers-

He swallows. 

Alex stays for hours, watching them both sleep. He hides when the nurses enter the room, just to climb out of his hiding place when they’re gone again. They sleep through the whole day, even when Mr. and Mrs. Patterson come to visit Luke. 

She’s always crying, her eyes red and bloated. She brushes his hair aside and kisses him on his forehead. She always takes time to check on Reggie, making sure he’s alright too and even kissing his forehead. 

It’s never been a secret that Mrs. Patterson’s Alex’s favourite parent of all of theirs. His own included. She’s never laughed at him when he cried or told him of irrational fears, always helping him through any anxiety attacks. 

She never judged them when she caught him and Luke kissing.

Mr. Patterson is mumbling to Luke, telling him that they can be better. They can work it out, be a family again. They just want him back. They want to support him, they just want to know he’s safe. A near death experience will probably do that to you.

Luke and Reggie sleep through the night. Alex watches them, counts every second, every moment in which they breathe. 

They move sometimes, mumble or grumble and Alex is right there, looking over them, making sure they are all right. 

It might be creepy watching them sleep, but he needs to. Seeing their chests rise and fall makes him breathe easier. His anxiety eases up. It’s something he can’t stop doing. 

Reggie’s parents come the next day two hours before the visiting hours end. They look timid. Where there’s no space between Mitch and Emily, hanging on to each other for support, there seems to be a mile between Mr. and Mrs. Peters. But they walk over to their son, each parent one one side and they talk to him, holding his hands in theirs. 

They promise him they’ll try. They promise not to fight so much. They promise to give him more attention if he just pulls through. For Reggie’s sake he hopes that’s true. 

Too often he’s hidden himself away at Alex’s or Luke’s or Bobby’s. Too often he’s searched for contact, hugging, pressing their hands together.

All of them leave when the nurse gently reminds them that they have to. 

Alex stays to watch over them at night again. He’s never tired anymore and he needs to make sure. Needs to know that they both will be okay. That they will be fine. 

“Wh’t ‘s th’s”, Luke mumbles, tongue heavy and voice slurring. He’s pulling on the IV on his arm. 

Alex jumps up alarmed. “Luke, stop!”

Luke’s head swivels up, he’s squinting in the dark light. 

“A’l’x?”, his voice is scratchy and weak, so unlike Luke it hurts. 

“Yeah, it’s me”, he smiles brokenly. 

There’s a sob escaping Luke’s throat, a wet, heavy sound. “You’re ‘kay.”

“Yeah”, he whispers, a shaky smile on his lips. Luke leans back against the pillows, eyes squeezing together. Tears roll down his cheeks and slip off his jaw. 

“Reg?”

“Reggie’s fine, too. He kinda woke up last night, but I told him to get back to sleep.”

Luke nods, biting his lower lip and then sliding his tongue across his lips. He coughs. 

“Wait”, Alex hurries to the small connected bathroom and fills a glass with water. He focuses not to spill a drop and places it safely on the bedside table. “Here, drink something.”

Luke nods, reaching towards the glass with clumsy fingers. 

“No, don’t drop it”, Alex reaches out, but the glass slips across his fingers and the glass crashes to the ground. There’s a sudden movement behind the curtain separating the two beds from each other. Alex draws it back. 

Reggie’s sitting in his bed, eyes wide and wild as he stares, his hair sticking up from his head in an absolute mess. “It’s fine, Reg. Everything’s fine”, Alex soothes and Reggie smiles dopily. The tension bleeding from his frame as he leans back down. He turns his head back towards Luke, who stares at Reggie, tears once again gathering in his eyes. 

“’m so sorry”, he brings out, voice scratchy and Alex once again goes to the bathroom to get water. Two glasses this time. He sets them down at Luke’s and Reggie’s bedside table respectively. 

“Wh’ f’r”, Reggie mumbles, eyes closed. Luke shakes his head, a sob erupting once again from his throat. He rubs his hand angrily over his eyes. 

“’s my fault. I said to go to get str’t d’gs”, he hiccups the end. “’s my fault we alm’st died. My f’lt you g’t hurt”

“No!”, Reggie says immediately, too loud for the small room. “We all ‘greed”, he coughs violently. 

“Drink”, Alex tells them, both of them. He helps Reggie, whose fingers are shakier than Luke’s. He watches his Adam’s apple bob as he drinks. 

“You couldn’t have known, Luke”, Alex says. Reggie nods, once he sets the glass down again. “You both should rest more”, he continues. Luke pouts, but his eyes are already drooping again. Reggie giggles slightly. 

“I’ll be here, when you wake up. I promise.”

“’kay”, Luke mumbles and he thinks Reggie’s saying something like “Al’x moth’ h’nn” which he thinks is supposed to be ‘Alex is mother henning’. He is. He can’t not take care of them. 

They sleep through the rest of the night. 

A nurse tidies them up in the morning. She also cleans the shards away. There’s a moment where she’s staring at the glasses on their bedside tables before she takes them with her. 

Reggie wakes up for lunch. It’s not real lunch, their stomachs are still inflamed and they mostly get liquid diet, but he’s eating in a way. Alex comes out of his hiding place when the doctor’s gone again. Reggie’s sucking on his straw, brightening when he sees him. 

“Alex”, he whispers. He blinks, frowning, but then he’s smiling again.

Alex grins. It’s good to see him so lucid again, more energetic than he’d been the last few days. 

“Hey, Reg. You’re up.”

“Yeah”, he says. There’s still a rasp to his voice, but it almost sounds normal now. Alex sits down on his bed. Luke mumbles something from his side of the room and Alex and Reggie snorts. 

They stay quiet for a few beats, Reggie slurping on his drink/food and Alex watching him. It’s a comfortable silence. Reggie lays the empty cup down his bedside table.

He’s watching him. Then, in a quiet voice he asks “can you- can you lie down next to me?” 

Alex hesitates. He can’t- he- Everything in him screams at him to comfort Reggie. Like he’d done when Reggie turned up at his house drenched in rain, saying that his parents wouldn’t stop fighting and could he just hold him. Every possible sarcastic answer died down in his throat and he’d opened his arms, pulling the wet boy close. 

Reggie’s eyes are big, wet. They’re so open and vulnerable and confused-

Something passes, it’s like he’s realising something. Reggie swallows, chewing on his lower lip. It’s like he’s debating about something with himself. Like he’s conflicted … 

“I- I heard you die”, Reggie whispers into the silence, a hand reaching out for him. “Luke was on my right side, I heard him groaning almost the whole time, but you- I heard them trying to reanimate you. I heard them- I heard them announce your time of death. I remember”, Reggie scrambles forward, his limbs tangled with his blanket make him fall down the bed face first. He groans. The sound dulled in the blanket. 

Alex’s head is empty. There’s nothing to say, nothing to do. There’s just- just. 

“Alex-” Reggie looks up, his eyes wet again, the green of his eyes so stark against the pale skin. 

Alex can’t. Not yet. Not now. He gets up from the bed, trying to smile at Reggie but at the same time trying to escape from him. The look receives from him is absolutely gut-wrenching and Alex hates himself. 

“I’m here”, he whispers, trying to reassure the bassist and Reggie stares. He stares at him hard and after a too long moment he nods, burying himself back into the blanket. He watches him, never taking his eyes off him and Alex, Alex smiles. 

It slips off his lips as soon as Reggie is asleep again. It’s just too much he needs to- he needs to breathe. He needs the fresh air. 

The hospital is full of people. He watches them, sick people with their families, taking strolls around the gardens. Sometimes, when he allows himself short breaks, he talks to a few. Never long, because the anxiety of the boys waking up without him there keeps him running back. The mere thought of discovering Reggie’s or Luke’s dead body makes his muscles urge in movement. 

Today, he feels calmer as soon as he’s outside. Everyone is wearing that same sad smile on their lips, that same exhausted and hurt look in their eyes. 

Alex sits down on a bench and presses his hands into the wood. 

Caring for Luke and Reggie, he’s become very good at focusing. Into pushing all his energy into one important deed, which he accomplishes, he thinks.

A woman sits down next to him, watching a child and a man talk to an elderly woman. The child’s kicking a football softly at the old woman. The old woman, probably a grandmother, laughs, kicking back. The ball doesn’t reach the little girl and she runs towards the ball, her yellow rubber boots squeaking, kicking it back again. 

“It hurts”, the woman next to him says. “Watching them is self-inflicted torture”, she laughs softly, shaking her soft brown hair. Alex watches her. She smiles at him. There’s something heartbreaking in her eyes. 

“Since when are you-”

“-taking care of my friends?”, Alex completes the sentence quickly and the woman presses her lips into a line, but she nods. 

“Yeah.”

“Three days”, he says. The woman swallows audibly. 

“You’re a good friend”, she whispers and Alex nods. 

“I just- I needed some air. I needed to get out. I can’t let them- I can’t let them realise-”

She frowns at him, scooting closer. “What are you talking about?”, she asks. An elderly man sits down on the bench where the woman’s sitting. She huffs and gets up, sitting down again on Alex’s other side. “Happens all the time”, she grumbles. Then after another beat, “well?”

“I can’t let them realise, I’m-”

“Dead? Honey, you can’t stop them from finding out.” 

“I know”, Alex almost shouts, breathing harshly. He squeezes his eyes together, breathes in and out, in and out, in and- he opens his eyes again. His thoughts are spinning. 

“Is it so wrong to want them to look at me like everything’s fine? I just-”

“Look at you?”, she repeats, interrupting them. Alex stares at her. She scoots closer, touching his shoulder. “What do you mean, look at you.”

Alex gets up, she’s too close. He shakes his head. “Isn’t that---normal?”

She shakes her head, watching the child play. “No.”

Alex goes back inside, his anxiety kicking back in, urging him to hurry back. He needs to see Reggie and Luke. He knows the way to their hospital room by heart already. He takes the stairs, up into the third floor. He hears the commotion when he walks through the door. 

“IT’S NOT TRUE” - Luke. Alex races down the hall, stopping in front of the hospital room, peeking inside. Luke’s sitting on Reggie’s bed, eyes red and tears running down his cheeks. Luke’s head is red, a few nurses and both boys’ parents in the room as well as a doctor. His eyes are glistening wetly, but there’s an angry spark.

“I saw him”, Luke insists. Emily hiccups, licking her lips as she steps towards her son. She grabs his hands, running her thumbs over his knuckles. Luke looks lost, for the first time he looks open and vulnerable and so fucking lost. 

“’s not true”, he gasps. Reggie’s full on crying next to him, there’s a wet patch on his hospital gown where the tears drop down. 

“Sweetie, Alex is dead”, her voice is soft as she draws him and Reggie into a hug. Both boys crying on her shoulders. 

They know. Alex stands in the door, watching everything unfold. It’s too early. He didn’t want- they need to-

He wants- 

Why didn’t he get more time? All he wanted was- but apparently that’s not something you get when you’re dead.

He shakes his head. He’s still here. He’s still here for both of them. Alex trips over his own feet as he hurries into the room. He stretches his arm out, trying to comfort his best friends, but his hand goes through Luke’s shoulder. 

“I’m still here”, he mumbles, watching them. He bites his lip hard, trying to feel something. Anything. 

“I’m still here”, he repeats, louder this time. Neither Luke nor Reggie react. 

“I love you”, he tells them. “Say something, Luke. Reg?”

Not one of them answers. They keep sobbing into Emily’s shoulder and Alex drops down. All the energy left in his body leaving him all of a sudden. He feels weak, his fingers clammy and there’s a wetness running down his cheek. 

“Still here”, he mumbles. And “I love you”, again and again. Even when the Peters and Pattersons leave. Even when the boys are alone in the room with each other as comfort. As they cry and sob and finally fall asleep on one bed, completely exhausted, limbs tangled together. 

“Please see me”, he mumbles brokenly to nobody.

**Author's Note:**

> After long contemplation I've finally decided to post something again. I actually wanted it to be something happier, but this is what decided to get finished and have like a beginning and an end. I wasn't in a good headspace when I wrote this, but ... I still hope you somehow enjoyed my writing?  
> Also not a native speaker, but giving her best.


End file.
